One early morning, I found her beneath the hibiscus—a dove, limp and frightened, one wing folded unnaturally against her side. I could tell she’d fallen or had been struck, but there was no blood, only trembling. I scooped her into my hands, as softly as I could, and carried her into the shadowed quiet of the kitchen.
I don’t remember exactly what I fed her—bits of crushed grain, perhaps, and water dripped from a spoon. What I do remember is her eyes. Dark and watchful. Waiting to see what kind of world she had landed in.
The Long Work of Healing
She didn’t heal overnight. And I didn’t expect her to.
I placed her gently in a shallow basket lined with cloth each day. Each day, I watched her try to flutter and fail. But one morning, she didn’t fall. Her wings opened, stretched against the light. And when I carried her to the porch, she didn’t wait—she rose.
That moment became a kind of parable for me.
Only years later, I realized how many of us carry broken wings. Some of us are wounded by silence, some by shame. Some are bent beneath the weight of history or of being born into roles we never chose.
The Women Who Carried On
In my village, there were women like that dove. Women who never cried out but carried their brokenness with dignity. I remember one who wore Sunday whites even on Thursday, who sang to herself while sweeping dust from a floor that would never stay clean. I remember another who worked in the pimento fields all day and returned home to tend a dying mother—her voice never raised, her eyes never dry. No one applauded their strength. No one wrote their names. But I write them now. Because mending doesn’t always come with ceremony, sometimes it comes with stillness. Sometimes it comes through stories.
Writing as an Act of Restoration
I write to give back what the world tried to take. The voices. The truth. The wings.
Every story I tell is a quiet rebellion against forgetting. It is a way of saying: You were here. You mattered. You were more than what broke you.
There are more stories to come. I welcome you to receive or share them. Subscribe at carol@carolguscott.com. There is a flight still in us.
